[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:00.40]E-commerce giant Alibaba
[00:02.80]broke records with sales of $14.3 billion
[00:07.36]on China's Singles' Day.
[00:09.61]It is the largest online shopping day in the world.
[00:13.28]Online sales from last year increased 60 percent,
[00:17.16]according to Alibaba.
[00:19.24]Most people shopped on mobile devices, said the firm.
[00:23.44]The numbers are preliminary and unaudited, the company said.
[00:28.36]China Singles' Day takes place November 11, or 11.11 each year.
[00:36.08]Alibaba promoted it as a shopping day in 2009.
[00:40.72]There are steep discounts and other promotions
[00:44.08]designed to attract online customers.
[00:47.44]Singles' Day quickly became a retail sensation.
[00:51.92]China Singles' Day "has now become
[00:55.16]larger than both Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined,"
[01:00.96]the two biggest shopping days in the U.S., reported NBC News.
[01:07.20]Kitty Fok is China manager for market research from IDC.
[01:13.36]She told the BBC that online shopping had become
[01:18.64]a comfortable channel for most consumers.
[01:22.44]"China is a big market with close to one billion smart, connected device users.
[01:29.28]It is good news for both Alibaba and their competitors," she said.
[01:35.12]Jack Ma is Alibaba's founder and executive chairman.
[01:40.68]He told journalists in Beijing that the event's annual growth in the future
[01:46.44]should be more than 50 percent.
[01:49.16]The company is focusing on international e-commerce
[01:53.12]for future Singles' Days, reported Reuters.
[01:56.88]"Within the next five years, we expect China
[02:00.80]will become the world's largest e-commerce market for imported products,"
[02:06.44]President Michael Evans told reporters on Wednesday.
[02:10.60]Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said in a statement
[02:16.48]that Singles' Day would mean that
[02:18.48]"the whole world will witness the power of Chinese consumption."
[02:23.13]Over 130 million users
[02:25.84]visited Alibaba's marketplace app, Taobao, reported the BBC.
[02:32.36]I'm Mary Gotschall.